[Aptitude-devel] Bug#931783: aptitude: failing to fetch InRelease files following buster release with no explanation/advice

[Julian Gilbey]

Package: aptitude
Version: 0.8.11-7
Severity: important

Hi!

I tried to update my testing machine after buster's release, using
aptitude, but failed - details and partial solution follow.

My /etc/apt/sources.list includes the lines:

deb http://ftp.uk.debian.org/debian/ testing main contrib non-free
deb-src http://ftp.uk.debian.org/debian/ testing main contrib non-free

deb http://security.debian.org/ buster/updates main contrib non-free
deb-src http://security.debian.org/ buster/updates main contrib non-free

deb http://www.deb-multimedia.org testing main non-free
deb-src http://www.deb-multimedia.org testing main non-free

When I select the "Update" (u) option in aptitude, it fetches lots of
files, but then gives me the following error message:

E: Failed to download some files
W: Failed to fetch http://ftp.uk.debian.org/debian/dists/testing/InRelease:
W: Failed to fetch http://security.debian.org/dists/buster/updates/InRelease:
W: Failed to fetch http://www.deb-multimedia.org/dists/testing/InRelease:
E: Some index files failed to download. They have been ignored, or old ones
   used instead.

And then I'm shown no upgradable packages, even though (at least on
one machine) I'm pretty sure there should be.

Using apt-get update on the command line, gave more explicit
information:

N: Repository 'http://security.debian.org buster/updates InRelease' changed its 'Version' value from '' to '10'
E: Repository 'http://security.debian.org buster/updates InRelease' changed its 'Suite' value from 'testing' to 'stable'
N: This must be accepted explicitly before updates for this repository can be applied. See apt-secure(8) manpage for details.
E: Repository 'http://ftp.uk.debian.org/debian testing InRelease' changed its 'Codename' value from 'buster' to 'bullseye'
N: This must be accepted explicitly before updates for this repository can be applied. See apt-secure(8) manpage for details.
N: Repository 'http://www.deb-multimedia.org testing InRelease' changed its 'Version' value from '0.0' to ''
E: Repository 'http://www.deb-multimedia.org testing InRelease' changed its 'Codename' value from 'buster' to 'bullseye'
N: This must be accepted explicitly before updates for this repository can be applied. See apt-secure(8) manpage for details.

It would be very helpful indeed if aptitude were able to show this
information, and perhaps offer to call apt-secure or something like
that.  I was certainly stumped, and don't imagine that I would be the
only one!

Best wishes,

   Julian